Illegal Job Discrimination Persists in the U.S.
Workplace as Affirmative Action Weakens

WASHINGTON, DC -- In recent years, political and legal debates have
focused on whether reverse discrimination favoring African Americans is
justified. What the debates neglect to address is the fact that
employment discrimination against African Americans, though illegal,
"is alive and well" in America, according to University of
Illinois-Chicago researcher Cedric Herring, Ph.D.

Current patterns of discrimination in the workplace--as well as what
can be done to amend such practices--are explored by Herring, a
sociology professor, in the summer 2002 edition of Contexts magazine,
the newest journal of the American Sociological Association (ASA).
"Racial discrimination in employment is still widespread; it has just
gone underground and become more sophisticated," says Herring, in his
article, titled "Is Job Discrimination Dead?"

The Washington, DC, Fair Employment Practices Commission found
blacks face discrimination in one out of every five job interviews.
Today employers use different phases of the hiring process to
discriminate against minorities (e.g., recruiting from primarily white
schools instead of through job training programs) and offer higher
status jobs and pay to white employees. Reports of job discrimination
against African Americans are correlated with darker complexion, higher
education, immigrant status, and young age.

Most sociologists point to prejudice and group conflict over scarce
resources as key reasons for why job discrimination occurs. An
alternative explanation is "structural discrimination." That is,
seemingly race-neutral policies (e.g., seniority rules, company
location decisions, and public transit and school funding) made by
companies and governments, for example, result in denied access to
employment opportunities. People making decisions regarding personnel
issues themselves may not be racially prejudiced, yet by virtue of
structural aspects of organizational rules, their decisions may have
disproportionately negative effects on individual members of different
races.

"The list of companies engaged in discrimination," writes Herring,
"is long and includes many pillars of American industry, not just
marginal or maverick firms. Yet ... many of us are still mystified and
hard-pressed for explanations ... in part because discrimination has
become so illegitimate that companies expend millions of dollars to
conceal it." These companies, maintains Herring, manage to discriminate
without using blatant racist practices characteristic of earlier days.
Instead, he says, job discrimination "has become more elusive and less
apparent." Some practices (e.g., job-training) have had an
unanticipated negative impact on the earnings and employability of
black inner-city residents, because some employers avoid recruiting
from job training, welfare, and state employment service programs.

Discrimination exacts a financial cost in the form of lower salary,
and it strongly hinders upward mobility of employees who are victims of
discrimination. Recent multivariate research on U.S. Census Bureau
data, controlling for education and other wage-related factors, shows
that the white-black wage gap (i.e., "the cost of being black") has
continued to be more than 10 percent, about the same as in the 1970s.
In addition, the effect of discrimination over the life course suggests
a cumulative impact on wages such that the earning gap between young
blacks and whites becomes greater as this age cohort gets older. Market
economy explanations about job discrimination do not adequately account
for the prevalence of the phenomenon, says Herring.

"Policies designed to reduce discrimination should be strengthened
and expanded rather than reduced or eliminated," says Herring. Herring
suggests that in order to reduce the subtle yet endemic discrimination
practices, there must be more concerted efforts by relevant parties.
For example:

Fair employment and other relevant agencies must conduct
more "social audits" of employers in various industries of varying
sizes and locations in order to quantitatively assess discrimination.
These audits entail using counterfeit "job seekers" of different races
but equivalent credentials to apply for jobs.

Governments
(local, state, and federal) must restrict governmental funding going to
private firms that have records of repeated discrimination.

To
"level the playing field" organizations must redouble affirmative
action efforts in order to identify, recruit, promote, or retain
qualified members of disadvantaged minority groups to overcome the
results of past discrimination and to deter discriminatory practices in
the present. Simply removing existing discrimination is not sufficient
to change discrepancies that affect life opportunities.

White
and black Americans must continue to speak out when episodes of
discrimination occur, especially now that such practices are illegal
and in spite of the fact that these practices have been driven
"underground."

Members of the media interested in a copy of Herring?s article
should contact Johanna Ebner, ASA Public Information Office
(202-383-9005 x332, pubinfo@asanet.org). Further information on ASA's Contexts magazine, published by the University of California Press in Berkeley, can be found at www.contextsmagazine.org.

About the American Sociological AssociationThe American Sociological Association (www.asanet.org),
founded in 1905, is a non-profit membership association dedicated to
serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science
and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society.